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Alright, sure - it was my hope that we could discuss GamerGate without requiring a formal, rigid list of topics but if y'all think that would be helpful then let's put one together.

Sounds good to me.

Since I consider myself pro-GG, I don't know that I'm the best person to present a list of things to talk about - such a list would reflect my own biases, and I believe for any useful discussion to occur that such a list needs to be as neutral as possible.

Can i ask a counter-question (To Steph): i often read - eg in the article irrelephant linked, about the "anti-GG side". What would you consider 'anti-GG' to be in light of the above?

There is a lot of nonsense being written on both sides of this - now - to me this however is what i would describe is "abalances / reasonable" quote - but to the other i'd assume it's propagana / nonsense / plain wrong.

I don’t think that everyone who uses Gamergate is evil, but moderates need to look at what is being done under, or within spitting distance of, its banner. Lives are being ruined and the world’s media is looking at gamers, just at a time when the medium was being taken seriously, and it is seeing its prejudices realised. Gamergate was front-page news in the New York Times when Sarkeesian had to cancel a talk over threats of a “massacre” (also dismissed as a “false flag” by Gamergate supporters); Cellan-Jones wrote on the BBC’s site that while he wouldn’t pick over the rights and wrongs of Gamergate (for the BBC is assiduous in not taking any sides in any debate),

“a couple of things are clear. It started with attacks on a female developer and the journalists she knew, and has given rise to a whole lot more viciousness, most of it aimed at women who dare to raise their heads above the parapet.”

Discuss (in the form of context not content)

Finally (really finally almost):
Is there any hope that a post with "serious concerns regrading the gamergate movement" would even be parsed/discussed instead of being snipped and dismissed. If so i'll put it together, if not i'll follow my own advice from page1 and just let the whole thing die.

Essentially, everything that can be said at this point has been said. until either side starts doing anything actually new, eg GG doing real journalism about the ethics thing / or the other lot doing whatever they are expected to do, then you may as well jsut read the other thread, ingest the sides/articles/posts and save yourself some effort.

I'm not sure what to thing about this paragraph. GG is active in going after the journalist's advertisers in question until said policies change in some form or another. It's also now seeking more outlets to show it's case to who are willing to look at both sides. It's working. The Girls of GamerGate HuffPo live was a big step and suddenly some of the more well known names are reporting that they're getting requests for interviews by other media. Since consumers don't have paid PR teams this is how consumers "doing real journalism about the ethics thing" get it done, by having media outlets not pass them over and getting some actual reporting done. So far we've seen a bunch of one side articles pushed by the same IP and PR teams that have been implicated. And some that refuse to budge.

Yes the next Guardian piece on GamerGate is going to be consulted with Leigh Alexander who is one of the people who started this. So expect it to be scathing.

It’s time for reasonable people to pull away. To form something else. To take everything they’ve learned about agitation and protest, and apply it in a very different way. Don’t have all this on your conscience.

We need to create an industry in which people can question practices and conventions, but also where all are welcome and safe. For a start, however, we need to create an industry in which, whatever you think of their views, people don't get chased out of their homes. (ed)

The first part of this is an appeal to motive. It's an attempt to quash something by painting it as bad and therefore it should be re-imagined as something good...and also leave behind any gains or identity it had. This really does nothing to benefit one side and it gives the advantage to the other to pin the same arguments against this re-imagined group against them.

The second part is another association fallacy. The fact that the people in question were receiving harassment before GamerGate is never mentioned. Nor examples in history that public figures receive the same treatment for a diverse number of subjects. It is essentially their way of using rare events to blame whatever parties they want for the actions of unknowns. Brianna Wu is a prime example. When someone tried to doxx her at 8chan (who was banned and deleted within minutes of said post), she instantly blamed tweets she received later on GamerGate despite the threatening account having no association nor using the hash tag. Could it have been some troll who wanted to get a rise out of her like a sadistic person? Very much so. That GamerGate is policing where it sees this happening is ignored because it didn't fit her narrative.

GamerGate has cracked down on this from the beginning but has not taken steps to publicize or get screenshots in the past. Sadly it has to be archived regularly just to prove that now. Let's face it, we can call out random harassers when we see them but there isn't much else to do. Especially when certain people move the goalposts on what is considered harassment. Unless it's something illegal, then the bad apples can't even be reported.

(Stephen would later go on to complain that this Kite harassing her. )

And lets face it GamerGate is very bad at being a "hate campaign". For being one of the top trending hash tags on twitter with over 3 million uses, the amount of "hate" tossed around is pretty thin. When the journalists in question can only point to a handful of polarizing people who have made a name for themselves by labeling others only to get labeled in return (which in their minds constitutes harassment but only if someone else does it) then you have a real problem calling it a hate campaign.

The investigation part is always ongoing. The support is for those that have the means to do so and signal boosting this information when it comes to light. This has been the way since the beginning.

Originally Posted by Itiken

Can i ask a counter-question (To Steph): i often read - eg in the article irrelephant linked, about the "anti-GG side". What would you consider 'anti-GG' to be in light of the above?

Steph can answer in her own way. But the most common view is that the anti-GG side are those that keep trying to push the semblance that this is about misogyny and lack of inclusiveness in the industry and gaming culture and more importantly, they're fighting to end those two issues. That was seen explicitly in many of the initial 14 blast articles that came out after MundaneMatt and Internet Aristocrat's videos detailing the corruption issues with many of those journalists.

Those stances were also destroyed when many high ranking (eg Sr editors, journalists, and movement leaders) participated in bigotry, bullying, and a slew of other practices as opposed to random low end or anonymous people who may or may not be associated with GamerGate. The GaymerX debacle alone killed off their moral high horses. Sam Biddle (sr editor Gawker) was recently called out for tweets advocating the shaming and bullying against pro-GG folks in submission on "Bullying Awareness Day". It got the attention of Project Anti-Bully and he was challenged to a boxing match by Mike Cernovich on the spot.

I don’t think that everyone who uses Gamergate is evil, but moderates need to look at what is being done under, or within spitting distance of, its banner.

This isn't lazy journalism at all. If it even appears to be associated or by coincidence follows a similar idea then it must be part of GamerGate...totally /sarcasm

It practically flies in the face of the same articles they write about Islamophobia where they argue that the hate part is not associated with the larger picture.

Lives are being ruined and the world’s media is looking at gamers, just at a time when the medium was being taken seriously, and it is seeing its prejudices realised. Gamergate was front-page news in the New York Times when Sarkeesian had to cancel a talk over threats of a “massacre” (also dismissed as a “false flag” by Gamergate supporters);

Actually, that threat was done long before the speaking event, was investigated, found 0 credibility, and as a result the police department refused to require pat downs and metal detectors at the entrance to the event on campus. This was based on past speaking appearances which included locations with specific gun laws. Utah has a concealed carry law which means that laws would have to be circumvented in the name of security. Since no credibility was given to the threats then they didn't bother. Sarkeesian decided not to do the event by her own will. In other words, she cancelled the event despite having had previous threats where concealed carry also existed but was never challenged. Hence why some believed it might be a possible false flag since this is right in the middle of the GamerGate campaign and she stood to gain more attention by not attending than by attending.

Cellan-Jones wrote on the BBC’s site that while he wouldn’t pick over the rights and wrongs of Gamergate (for the BBC is assiduous in not taking any sides in any debate),

“a couple of things are clear. It started with attacks legitimate concerns about a female developer and the journalists she knew had relationships, and has given rise to a whole lot more viciousness, most of it aimed at women both sides who dare to raise their heads above the parapet.”

I don't think there are many people arguing against gender equality or proper journalistic ethics.
The entire reason why people are frothing at the mouth arguing this is because they disagree what 'Gamergate' stands for/means. I think the term should be abandoned altogether, the faster the better.
Compared to pro-choice vs pro-life. Sure, the names for the campaigns are retarded and cause for debate by themselves, but at least if you say "I am pro-choice" people will know what your stance is.
Being Pro- or Anti- Gamergate is meaningless when the term has so many separate interpretations and stances.
If these were separate issues, one being journalistic ethics and one being gender equality, and the name gamergate never existed, I believe this issue would never have grown out to be this shitstorm of toxic remarks in all directions.

Huh, and I thought Pro-GG meant that you liked arguing with feminists and "SJWs" on the internet.

Yeah, whatever the GamerGate "movement" is, I don't see it as being productive, because at this point it is about arguing on the internet.

Of course, a Pro-GG would just say that I am trying to derail the movement and suppress speech, but that just means more arguing on the internet.

That's part of it. It's also contacting the businesses that advertise on these sites and trying to get them to pull their funding. That's had some small measure of success.

Remember a couple of years ago when you had a bunch of "Gamers are spoiled brats" articles after the Mass Effect 3 ending? Turns out there was a Google group GameJournoPros where these guys would come together and talk about stuff. That in itself is not a big deal but there does seem to be a lot of collusion between the gaming media and the journalists that cover them. If these journalists are not working for our, the customers, interests why should we keep them around? If they are paid PR people then let's get rid of them and get a new breed in here.

The SJW stuff is another point of contention. A lot of the younger GGers seem to resent the inclusion of politics into our hobby whereas some of us older guys know it was only a matter of time. It's just that Sarkeesian and her fellow travelers push such a poisonous version of feminism it seems to be out to ruin fun. Sorry gotta help put kids to bed. I'll add more later.

In a split very similar to that between conservative talk radio versus liberal written journalism, what we’ve seen is the emergence of a new media of talk radio style hosts on YouTube. Many of them haven’t the first clue what they’re talking about, but they’re speaking to large audiences nonetheless.
[...]
The youth conversation around the medium is happening in this realm more and more, and at the moment its idea spectrum ranges from the moderately conservative to the extremely conservative, and that’s a problem. Games need their NPR equivalent rather than asking Anita Sarkeesian to carry that torch all by herself.

As someone who doesn't follow vlogs, and is an old guy (in 30s) this wouldn't surprise me.

Originally Posted by Loire

I'm too stupid to say anything that deserves being in your magnificent signature.

The OP is missing the oart where the 'gaming journalism' sites involved near-simultaneously put out the "end of gamers" articles.

We're in srs bsns now, you need to do more than assert stuff that isn't true.
Two articles were put out at a similar time, leigh's and Golding's. Golding's is the one that uses the word "death" as in "death of identity". And yet Leigh is the only person getting hate for a "death of gamers" article. Because she's a woman who has upset people previously and they piled on, switching from one woman to another wasn't hard for the people pushing it on twitter.

The OP is missing the oart where the 'gaming journalism' sites involved near-simultaneously put out the "end of gamers" articles.

We're in srs bsns now, you need to do more than assert stuff that isn't true.
Two articles were put out at a similar time, leigh's and Golding's. Golding's is the one that uses the word "death" as in "death of identity". And yet Leigh is the only person getting hate for a "death of gamers" article. Because she's a woman who has upset people previously and they piled on, switching from one woman to another wasn't hard for the people pushing it on twitter.

The Golding post is on Tumblr. Golding didn't have a senior editor, have to pass his article through a legal dept, receive advertising funding, nor is paid by Tumblr to write on specific topics on a deadline. Leigh Alexander on the other hand was a editior for Gamasutra at the time and would later double down on the whole thing with a Time article which is then followed up by her personal blog which is also cited by other outlets. She's also gone out of her way to contact other websites to spread her narrative and bragged about doing so. The other articles were published with links, external quotes, and visual content within a few hours of Alexanders original piece. So these "journalists" went into super productive overdrive to publish these first articles....or someone shared her article with them beforehand. Completely coincidence, I mean it's not like there was any sort of game journo list where they could collude to push a narrative. Regardless, the other people and their websites were also boycotted and advertisers petitioned by GamerGate.

Leigh Alexander really did get the ire of some with her caustic writing that even pissed off Ben Kochera who would later complain about her.

Games culture’ is a petri dish of people who know so little about how human social interaction and professional life works that they can concoct online ‘wars’ about social justice or ‘game journalism ethics,’ straight-faced, and cause genuine human consequences.

Remember, the GamerGate tag wasn't created yet and the first IA and MM videos delving into accusations of journalist corruption and the effects it might have had on something as large as IndieCade are just now taking root when she wrote this. In fact, at this point in history GamerGate probably would have fizzled out to nothing more than a vid or two which the people implicated could have brushed off. Good job pouring gasoline on that fire.

It’s not like there are reputable outlets publishing rational articles in favor of the trolls’ ‘side’. Don’t give press to the harassers. Don’t blame an entire industry for a few bad apples.

You can taste that sweet irony from here.

These obtuse shitslingers, these wailing hyper-consumers, these childish internet-arguers -- they are not my audience.

If they weren't before then they definitely are not now and they're also not rewarding you with advertising clicks.

That NeoGAF list is missing a few articles as well, all within a few hours of each other.

There are 5 others published that day which all focus on a single Sarkeesian threat the day before but link back to the Alexander and Wilson articles.

These were followed up the next day (Aug 29) by others also not on that list and then even more on Mon. morning all about the same thing and redirecting frequently to Alexanders or Wilson's (both Gamasutra) and Golding is quickly forgotten.

Didn't see we were having this discussion here now, I'd been staying out of it in general since general is a shitshow unless you like pictures/gifs of cats and half naked/naked women or various implements of war.

Begin epic wall of text.

So first things first, journalism in gaming is pretty fucking broken, like more so than most traditional media which can at least claim incompetence when they fuck up. A large amount of the fuel for this whole incident has nothing to do with misogyny and everything to do with the dissatisfaction the community feels with the associated gaming media. For a long time the larger incorporated outlets have effectively been worn like cocksocks by the various publishers. They have become wholly dependent for survival on the people which they're supposed to be checking on, this situation is untenable, especially as gamers have grown up and become adults it's becoming harder and harder to bullshit us.

We’re beginning to see a shift towards independent actors in gaming media, it’s been ongoing for quite some time. Some examples actually include Kotaku and polygon which started small and grew based on their unwillingness to be publisher sockpuppets. Unfortunately these new giants are showing another trend, they seem to have a very uniform political stance and more concerning a political agenda.

One of the major criticisms aimed at Zoe Quinn Long before gamergate was that her games were winning awards on sociopolitical rather than design or technical merit. While I actually do support the idea of games exploring the human condition beyond hack and slash mechanics there is definitely some weight to the criticisms leveled in this direction too. I’d advise anyone to go give depression quest a try and tell me whether you think it’s worthy of an indy gaming award, if you’re willing to take my word for it, it’s not. It’s basically a ‘choose your own adventure’ story in eBook form, and it’s not really even a good example of choose your own adventure, people have questioned whether you could even call it a game, and they’re not wrong to bring the point up. This game won an award under heavy criticism for these reasons, and it later came out during this whole debacle that one of the Polygon editors responsible for judging in that contest helped to fund it with a six thousand dollar donation. The point here is that a lot of people feel Quinn has received awards not on merit but because of a political agenda, which then ties into the next major problem.

What I think a lot of the gamergate crowd feel isn't getting examined enough, or is simply being dismissed is the actual accusations of misogyny surrounding #GamerGate, which basically boil down to derision of Zoe Quin and Anita Sarkeesian, as far as I've been able to tell they're the only prominent females on the opposing side actually drawing major criticism. I’ve already gone into detail of one major incident with Quinn but it’s also useful to note her defense of herself, which actually isn’t a defense, it’s simply to claim that her critics are misogynists, effectively she has no defense beyond an ad hominem attack, which is telling in itself. Moving on to Sarkeesian, I don’t really know what to make of her beyond that she’s a loud feminist who talks about video games but seems to have little knowledge of them beyond what you might read in the news. Her attitude and statements are insulting, condescending and bombastic, and her response to criticism mirror’s Quinn’s.

Looking at the two of them, their methods, their media, and their apparent agenda, a common thread starts to emerge. Both of them seem to have come to the conclusion that gaming is wrong and must be ‘fixed’ with feminism. I think what’s causing the ruckus is that this whole attitude is confrontational as well as condescending, people who would otherwise be their allies end up being insulted by their broad brush statements and rebuffed by their attitude. The modus operandi here seems to be to act out and then switch into the victim role and yell loudly when the backlash hits, relying on naďve outside media to see a woman in distress and rally round (which is irony in magnitudes I have trouble comprehending).

None of this is to say that gaming doesn’t have a well-deserved reputation for misogyny, the fighting game scene alone should be a badge of shame we all wear until someone fucking straitens that shit out. However I don’t think Quinn and Sarkeesian’s approach is anything but counterproductive, chastising the whole gaming community as if we were children in need of correction, or claiming that legitimate criticism is nothing more than misogyny isn’t going to advance the cause of women in games and gaming, in fact it will do nothing but the opposite. I think that’s obvious to many people, and that’s why gamergate is still frothing, because people aren’t just mad about transparency, they’re mad the people like Quinn and Sarkeesian are speaking for them without their consent, or identifying them to mass media as asocial deviants in need of correction without bothering to understand them or in a darker vein, because doing so gets them the media attention from which they make their living.

The OP is missing the oart where the 'gaming journalism' sites involved near-simultaneously put out the "end of gamers" articles.

We're in srs bsns now, you need to do more than assert stuff that isn't true.
Two articles were put out at a similar time, leigh's and Golding's. Golding's is the one that uses the word "death" as in "death of identity". And yet Leigh is the only person getting hate for a "death of gamers" article. Because she's a woman who has upset people previously and they piled on, switching from one woman to another wasn't hard for the people pushing it on twitter.

The Golding post is on Tumblr. Golding didn't have a senior editor, have to pass his article through a legal dept, receive advertising funding, nor is paid by Tumblr to write on specific topics on a deadline. Leigh Alexander on the other hand was a editior for Gamasutra at the time and would later double down on the whole thing with a Time article which is then followed up by her personal blog which is also cited by other outlets. She's also gone out of her way to contact other websites to spread her narrative and bragged about doing so. The other articles were published with links, external quotes, and visual content within a few hours of Alexanders original piece. So these "journalists" went into super productive overdrive to publish these first articles....or someone shared her article with them beforehand. Completely coincidence, I mean it's not like there was any sort of game journo list where they could collude to push a narrative. Regardless, the other people and their websites were also boycotted and advertisers petitioned by GamerGate.

Except we know Leigh and Golding aren't on the GameJournoPro list. And neither are most of the other people who linked to their articles.
And knocking up some copy in a few hours and whatever is "news" that day is exactly what games websites writers do every single day of their lives, so the fact lots of people link to something that they see as a big news piece shouldn't be surprising. I mean it was big on twitter right?

The fact is journalists communicating with each other is not a problem, nor unique to games. Press clubs are a real thing that the real journalism world has in abundance. No journalism ethics course would even think to dicuss what is appropriate to discuss with other journalists privately because it would never occur to anyone that it's an issue.

The other fact is this "coordinated" campaign didn't exist, and even the GameJournoPro smoking gun provides no evidence that it did as the key people aren't on that list.

I have been casually trying to work out what is going on here correct me if I am wrong but it seems to boil down to a few extremist groups slinging mud and faeces at each other and labelling themselves as members of a much wider community that would want or have very little in common with them.
My self as a 'Hardcore Gamer' who has been so longer than most of those involved have been alive resent claims to the 'Gamer' tag. The groups seem to be 'womens rights activists', 'teenagers and small minded men who have grown used to the anonymity of the internet' and those drawn into the issue due to bleeding hearts, social/business positions that mean they responsibility to and lastly any one who sees a 'news story' that will sell column inches.

The only right position now is to tell the first group to wind their necks in and stop poking. The second group to be visited by the authorities and learn that the people on the other end of the internet have rights and that even here you have to take responsibility for your actions (prison sentence and criminal records for people who made death threats etc.). The third group to either grow professionally or stop putting them selves in positions of authority. And the last group nothing needs to be done, society has already learned the lesson to take a bag of salt along with any opinion piece from journalists.

"Kerning is serious business"
And having an image that does not cause Autism attacks even more so.

The OP is missing the oart where the 'gaming journalism' sites involved near-simultaneously put out the "end of gamers" articles.

We're in srs bsns now, you need to do more than assert stuff that isn't true.
Two articles were put out at a similar time, leigh's and Golding's. Golding's is the one that uses the word "death" as in "death of identity". And yet Leigh is the only person getting hate for a "death of gamers" article. Because she's a woman who has upset people previously and they piled on, switching from one woman to another wasn't hard for the people pushing it on twitter.

The Golding post is on Tumblr. Golding didn't have a senior editor, have to pass his article through a legal dept, receive advertising funding, nor is paid by Tumblr to write on specific topics on a deadline. Leigh Alexander on the other hand was a editior for Gamasutra at the time and would later double down on the whole thing with a Time article which is then followed up by her personal blog which is also cited by other outlets. She's also gone out of her way to contact other websites to spread her narrative and bragged about doing so. The other articles were published with links, external quotes, and visual content within a few hours of Alexanders original piece. So these "journalists" went into super productive overdrive to publish these first articles....or someone shared her article with them beforehand. Completely coincidence, I mean it's not like there was any sort of game journo list where they could collude to push a narrative. Regardless, the other people and their websites were also boycotted and advertisers petitioned by GamerGate.

Except we know Leigh and Golding aren't on the GameJournoPro list. And neither are most of the other people who linked to their articles.
And knocking up some copy in a few hours and whatever is "news" that day is exactly what games websites writers do every single day of their lives, so the fact lots of people link to something that they see as a big news piece shouldn't be surprising. I mean it was big on twitter right?

Actually no it wasn't big on twitter. GamerGate didn't take off until this event actually (Aug 28). It had only partially grown after some sites started to change their disclosure policies (and would silently change back later). The hash tag GamerGate was created literally the night before and probably would have stayed small after the policy changes since it was focused on a handful of devs and journalists.

You are partially correct on some parts though. Only 2/3 of the total authors are on the list or had their names mentioned specifically as in the case of Alexander (Kuchera quoted as hating her style but was in contact and wanted to add). Meanwhile the ones that aren't on the list all have their editors there. Wilson and Alexander both wrote for Gamasutra so it's a given they may have collaborated and not the issue. The point is that the ability to collude was definitely there. This was followed up by more investigation turning up emails, twitter posts, and facebook posts that showed definite collusion on the matter. Some may argue that this is circumstantial but to the consumers, this was more than enough as the trust between them and the journalists had already eroded.

Originally Posted by TheManFromDelmonte

The fact is journalists communicating with each other is not a problem, nor unique to games. Press clubs are a real thing that the real journalism world has in abundance. No journalism ethics course would even think to dicuss what is appropriate to discuss with other journalists privately because it would never occur to anyone that it's an issue.

Well it's definitely not unique to games and the excuses about press clubs or "we're just friendly banter" have been used in the past. The reason why this was brought up is because it's happened to real journalists and was a black mark.

The point is that this is very very shitty behavior and just compounded distrust of these people. More importantly it showed how all of these "journalists" were after a narrative rather than just reporting on an subject and how they could pressure others to cover or not cover and aspect. These were both breeches of SPJ ethics and clear cut examples of nepotism but that isn't against the law. So their readers (ie consumers) revolted and now many are realizing why this is bad. They're understanding that this is the gasoline that started the fire and to take care in the future.

I've lived through this same kind of bullshit back when I was a kid and it seems that every new generation are apt to make the same mistakes. They told us that heavy metal was turning us into devil worshipers (the spinning records backwards to hear satan days), then that Dungeons and Dragons would turn us into occultist or give you psychological problems, then how cartoons were too violent and would turn us into killers, which led up to the Jack Thompson days of "video games are murder simulators" and we're going to be killers again. Now we're at period of video games will make us sexist and misogynists. We were to humble ourselves before these patrons of morality and submit to their will despite the very muddled science of their beliefs.

In all of those previous periods people had to take a stand otherwise the very things we loved would have be curtailed and controlled by a group of moral panic extremists riding on moral high horses trying to run roughshod over something they found "problematic". With the rate at which this is making headlines, we will probably have to see another Parents Music Resource Center style event or some tie in with the whole "rape culture" panic going on. Brianna Wu is already attempting to engage Elizabeth Warren on the issue to bring legislation.

Even if you’re only a casual internet user, chances are that by now you’ve probably heard something about the movement known as Gamergate. If you’re unfamiliar with what Gamergate is, we’ve taken the liberty of writing up a brief summary of the movement and its goals, which we will immediately change if anything in it offends anyone who associates with Gamergate.

"Those who are skilled in combat do not become angered, those who are skilled at winning do not become afraid. Thus the wise win before they fight, while the ignorant fight to win." - Zhuge Liang

The OP is missing the oart where the 'gaming journalism' sites involved near-simultaneously put out the "end of gamers" articles.

We're in srs bsns now, you need to do more than assert stuff that isn't true.
Two articles were put out at a similar time, leigh's and Golding's. Golding's is the one that uses the word "death" as in "death of identity". And yet Leigh is the only person getting hate for a "death of gamers" article. Because she's a woman who has upset people previously and they piled on, switching from one woman to another wasn't hard for the people pushing it on twitter.

The Golding post is on Tumblr. Golding didn't have a senior editor, have to pass his article through a legal dept, receive advertising funding, nor is paid by Tumblr to write on specific topics on a deadline. Leigh Alexander on the other hand was a editior for Gamasutra at the time and would later double down on the whole thing with a Time article which is then followed up by her personal blog which is also cited by other outlets. She's also gone out of her way to contact other websites to spread her narrative and bragged about doing so. The other articles were published with links, external quotes, and visual content within a few hours of Alexanders original piece. So these "journalists" went into super productive overdrive to publish these first articles....or someone shared her article with them beforehand. Completely coincidence, I mean it's not like there was any sort of game journo list where they could collude to push a narrative. Regardless, the other people and their websites were also boycotted and advertisers petitioned by GamerGate.

Except we know Leigh and Golding aren't on the GameJournoPro list. And neither are most of the other people who linked to their articles.
And knocking up some copy in a few hours and whatever is "news" that day is exactly what games websites writers do every single day of their lives, so the fact lots of people link to something that they see as a big news piece shouldn't be surprising. I mean it was big on twitter right?

Actually no it wasn't big on twitter. GamerGate didn't take off until this event actually (Aug 28). It had only partially grown after some sites started to change their disclosure policies (and would silently change back later). The hash tag GamerGate was created literally the night before and probably would have stayed small after the policy changes since it was focused on a handful of devs and journalists.

You are partially correct on some parts though. Only 2/3 of the total authors are on the list or had their names mentioned specifically as in the case of Alexander (Kuchera quoted as hating her style but was in contact and wanted to add). Meanwhile the ones that aren't on the list all have their editors there. Wilson and Alexander both wrote for Gamasutra so it's a given they may have collaborated and not the issue. The point is that the ability to collude was definitely there. This was followed up by more investigation turning up emails, twitter posts, and facebook posts that showed definite collusion on the matter. Some may argue that this is circumstantial but to the consumers, this was more than enough as the trust between them and the journalists had already eroded.

Originally Posted by TheManFromDelmonte

The fact is journalists communicating with each other is not a problem, nor unique to games. Press clubs are a real thing that the real journalism world has in abundance. No journalism ethics course would even think to dicuss what is appropriate to discuss with other journalists privately because it would never occur to anyone that it's an issue.

Well it's definitely not unique to games and the excuses about press clubs or "we're just friendly banter" have been used in the past. The reason why this was brought up is because it's happened to real journalists and was a black mark.

The point is that this is very very shitty behavior and just compounded distrust of these people. More importantly it showed how all of these "journalists" were after a narrative rather than just reporting on an subject and how they could pressure others to cover or not cover and aspect. These were both breeches of SPJ ethics and clear cut examples of nepotism but that isn't against the law. So their readers (ie consumers) revolted and now many are realizing why this is bad. They're understanding that this is the gasoline that started the fire and to take care in the future.

I've lived through this same kind of bullshit back when I was a kid and it seems that every new generation are apt to make the same mistakes. They told us that heavy metal was turning us into devil worshipers (the spinning records backwards to hear satan days), then that Dungeons and Dragons would turn us into occultist or give you psychological problems, then how cartoons were too violent and would turn us into killers, which led up to the Jack Thompson days of "video games are murder simulators" and we're going to be killers again. Now we're at period of video games will make us sexist and misogynists. We were to humble ourselves before these patrons of morality and submit to their will despite the very muddled science of their beliefs.

In all of those previous periods people had to take a stand otherwise the very things we loved would have be curtailed and controlled by a group of moral panic extremists riding on moral high horses trying to run roughshod over something they found "problematic". With the rate at which this is making headlines, we will probably have to see another Parents Music Resource Center style event or some tie in with the whole "rape culture" panic going on. Brianna Wu is already attempting to engage Elizabeth Warren on the issue to bring legislation.

Taken in one byte it's not a bad little narrative but lets examine it to see how the clouds in the sky these opinions rest in are formed shall we.

Actually no it wasn't big on twitter. GamerGate didn't take off until this event actually (Aug 28). It had only partially grown after some sites started to change their disclosure policies (and would silently change back later). The hash tag GamerGate was created literally the night before and probably would have stayed small after the policy changes since it was focused on a handful of devs and journalists.

Spoiler:

So Gamergate wasn't a thing until people decided to make it a thing on twitter. Gotcha. Thanks for clearing that up. Shame you neatly sidestepped the actual point of his post though. There are aspersions being cast that 'everyoen was in on it' and it's demonstrably provable that that is a totally made up pile of nonsense.

You are partially correct on some parts though. Only 2/3 of the total authors are on the list or had their names mentioned specifically as in the case of Alexander (Kuchera quoted as hating her style but was in contact and wanted to add). Meanwhile the ones that aren't on the list all have their editors there. Wilson and Alexander both wrote for Gamasutra so it's a given they may have collaborated and not the issue. The point is that the ability to collude was definitely there

So some journalists were able to talk to some other journalists. They may or may not have colluded bu they may each in turn have communicated with each other, or been able to communicate with each other. Gotcha. But it was nly bad journalists who talked on there. With you so far.

This was followed up by more investigation turning up emails, twitter posts, and facebook posts that showed definite collusion on the matter. Some may argue that this is circumstantial but to the consumers, this was more than enough as the trust between them and the journalists had already eroded.

Here the narrative kicks in. let me translate.

At this point it fits the narrative story to claim that the whole world is very upset by journalists talking to each other about things. I can dig up some screenshots of stuff that paints things however i like. infact I have loads of secret communications that i will allude to that proves my point but can't show you because it's secret.

Still awake back there? goody. moving on:

Originally Posted by TheManFromDelmonte

The fact is journalists communicating with each other is not a problem, nor unique to games. Press clubs are a real thing that the real journalism world has in abundance. No journalism ethics course would even think to dicuss what is appropriate to discuss with other journalists privately because it would never occur to anyone that it's an issue.

Well it's definitely not unique to games and the excuses about press clubs or "we're just friendly banter" have been used in the past. The reason why this was brought up is because it's happened to real journalists and was a black mark.

No. no it wasn't. once again it's very easy to cast around aspersions of "this was very bad and everyone as really in trouble for it". What you are in fact saying is Journalists are not allowed to talk to other journalists in pricate, they must do it all out in the open, in public, in front of me because i am extremely distrustful fo them. That's cool. just pop out and say it though, as you really are using way too many words up to say it.

The point is that this is very very shitty behavior and just compounded distrust of these people.

Wait what? Why ? By who? By people too stupid to think that people in a common field communicate? What next? Do *we* need to set up a twitter hashtag to make sure Science dudes don't collude and only research in a vaacum. Some kind of geo-location tagging to make sure no abr has more than 2 It Techs in or they may Collude, making everyone distrustful of them?

More importantly it showed how all of these "journalists" were after a narrative rather than just reporting on an subject and how they could pressure others to cover or not cover and aspect.

i want to like the bravo.gif image here but this is one of these wonderful leaps of faith that needs to be looked at.

We are supposed to believe at this point that either the sole, or the emergent reason for members of this list to communicate is to fool, hoodwink, misdirect and / or con the reading public into following a secret narrative layed down in the Group by the members. I gatehr it's way past asking ifg you ahve any idea how carzy you sound ?

[quote] These were both breeches of SPJ ethics [/qoute]
No there wasn't

and clear cut examples of nepotism but that isn't against the law.

As above

So their readers (ie consumers) revolted and now many are realizing why this is bad.

They didn't and they are not. Period. in fact quite the opposite. The internet is full of AMA's, interviews, posts and blogs wondering what the hell everyone is so upset about. Most of of the list has been leaked in some form or the other and it's entirely bland and free of all but the most asine aspersions leveled against it.

Even mr B seems to fall ove rhimself at this point:http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-L...king-Phil-Fish
let me get this straight though. The list members (tm) make fun of paid review, marketing and everyone else in private, but still then play out their narrative. Or follow the corrupt hands, or something.

I must admit i'm lost now. really.

They're understanding that this is the gasoline that started the fire and to take care in the future.

Ah more vague handwavium. More of the "thin end of the wedge" "they will be sorry" "straw that broke the camel's back" vagueity with no actual substance beyond a few conspiracy nuts.

But lets not stop there.

I've lived through this same kind of bullshit back when I was a kid and it seems that every new generation are apt to make the same mistakes. They told us that heavy metal was turning us into devil worshipers (the spinning records backwards to hear satan days), then that Dungeons and Dragons would turn us into occultist or give you psychological problems, then how cartoons were too violent and would turn us into killers, which led up to the Jack Thompson days of "video games are murder simulators" and we're going to be killers again. Now we're at period of video games will make us sexist and misogynists. We were to humble ourselves before these patrons of morality and submit to their will despite the very muddled science of their beliefs.

This is my favorite paragraph of the whole fiasco.

If translated correctly you are saying that because in your youth, crazy Religious / neo-conservative types were 'Down' on D&D, now their opposite numbers, the liberals want to stop you from playing computergames? is that it?

Now we're at period of video games will make us sexist and misogynists.

We were to humble ourselves before these patrons of morality and submit to their will despite the very muddled science of their beliefs.

muddled science of their beliefs

So they who would stop you from having D&D now will stop you from computergaming because of the science of their beliefs? Even skipping over the "science != Belief" problem Modern neo-Conservative ideology is perfectly aligned with the current 'GG' philosophy. Games are for men. Women are objects adn should be paid less / treated as such / in the kitchen. Children should do as their parents did, not listen to heavy metal and not play games parents do not understand with picturs of wizzards in them.

Do you not see how you are talking cross-idiology? I assume not but lets continue:

In all of those previous periods people had to take a stand otherwise the very things we loved would have be curtailed and controlled by a group of moral panic extremists riding on moral high horses trying to run roughshod over something they found "problematic".

So gamergate is taking a stand. A stand against moral panic. against Political Correctness gone mad. against the system trying to oppress gamers out of their thingies. Is it now. interesting. A few pages ago it was about journalism and stopping the journalist from writing things that they have discussed. Though a few pages before that it was about a woman who wrote a game getting a review she allegedly paid for with her vagina.

make up your mind man. You can see why the people are confused.

With the rate at which this is making headlines, we will probably have to see another Parents Music Resource Center style event or some tie in with the whole "rape culture" panic going on.

Wow. 'Rape culture panic'. I just can't hold it back any more:

Spoiler:

Brianna Wu is already attempting to engage Elizabeth Warren on the issue to bring legislation.

Remember a couple of years ago when you had a bunch of "Gamers are spoiled brats" articles after the Mass Effect 3 ending?

Just to pick up on this as well on my way out of the door (echo chamber):

Gamers are spoiled brats. It's not a question it's a statement of fact.
Does it even need referencing? Have a read through any Metacritic review page. Any official game forum. Read the Eve-O forums regarding capital jump changes. Read the blizzard forums every time they either do or don't touch anything. read the games subforum of this site. It' spages and pages of overeactions, screaming shitfits, threats of legal action, half harted calls to arms.

And don't' forget what started the whole #GG thing off. A woman did some vBlogs about game characters. 'Gamers' took offence and in came the DOXX's, rapedeaththreat's etc etc. A woman who the internet doesn't like wrote a game, 'Gamers' took offence and in came the DOXX's, rapedeaththreat's etc etc.

A few probably misguided feminists write a couple of "gamers are dead" articles talking about the SingleWhiteMale basement dwellers who are worried their precious art form is being destroyed by a moral mninority, adn the internet erupts into the most epic shitstorm in living memory because HOW DARE THEY.

And you think that the problem in games is the journalists who write about it? i feel that is a extraordinarily simplistic world view.

Grand finale:

Even a thread started in SRS BZNS especially to talk about the serious parts of GG does nothing of the sort. All people want to do is shout down "the other side" and prove that their side is wrong because of FACTS.

it's fucking pathetic.

If you want to be about journalism so much, go start a fucking blog or something.

Gamers are spoiled brats. It's not a question it's a statement of fact.
Does it even need referencing? Have a read through any Metacritic review page. Any official game forum. Read the Eve-O forums regarding capital jump changes. Read the blizzard forums every time they either do or don't touch anything. read the games subforum of this site. It' spages and pages of overeactions, screaming shitfits, threats of legal action, half harted calls to arms.

And knocking up some copy in a few hours and whatever is "news" that day is exactly what games websites writers do every single day of their lives, so the fact lots of people link to something that they see as a big news piece shouldn't be surprising. I mean it was big on twitter right?

Actually no it wasn't big on twitter. GamerGate didn't take off until this event actually (Aug 28).

"It" in this context isn't gamergate but the post by Leigh. that's what would be high profile enough to get people to write about it.
I imagine game journalists spend half their day looking at new stories on each other's sites in case they've missed something to write about.